SARAJEVO (Bosnia and Herzegovina), September 7 (SeeNews) – Four Southeast European countries – Bosnia, Moldova, Montenegro and Serbia – made a debut in this year’s Economic Freedom of the World report, published by the independent Canadian-based Fraser Institute, the institute said.
The report measures the extent to which the policies and institutions of various countries support economic freedom. It uses 42 different measures to create an index that ranks in descending order 141 economies around the world according to the level they encourage personal choice, voluntary exchange, freedom to compete, and security of private property.
Out of the four southeast European countries added in this year’s report Montenegro is ranked highest, at the the 60th position, in terms of economic freedom. It is followed by Moldova (76th), Bosnia (97th) and Serbia (119th).
Among the other six southeast European countries, which have been part of the index so far, Bulgaria is ranked highest (56th), followed by Croatia and Romania (82nd), Macedonia (86th), Slovenia (91st) and Albania (97th).
The leaders in this year’s world economic freedom ranking in descending order are Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia and Ireland.
The rankings of other major economies are: Germany (18th), Japan (22nd), Mexico (44th), France and Italy (52nd), India (69th), China (86th), Brazil (101st) and Russia (112th).
The majority of countries gravitating toward the bottom of the index are African, with the nation with least economic freedom being Zimbabwe. Other economies from the bottom 10 include Myanmar, Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Venezuela, Togo and Niger, the report said.